The present invention relates to search engines, and more particularly pertains to a method for organizing information by monitoring the search activity and personal data of searchers.
The Internet is an extensive network of computer systems containing hundreds of millions of documents, files, databases, text collections, audio clips, video clips and samples of any other type of information (collectively xe2x80x9carticlesxe2x80x9d). As explained in my earlier referenced patent applications, search engines are used to locate articles over the Internet. Given the large amount of information available over the Internet, it is desirable to reduce this information down to a manageable number of articles which fit the needs of a particular user.
Accordingly, it is an object of the invention to organize articles available over the Internet or within any other collection of information.
It is another object of the present invention to monitor searching activity to organize articles in accordance with the searching activity of one or more users.
It is another object of the present invention to utilize personal data about a searcher to organize articles in accordance with the searching activity of one or more users.
To accomplish these and other objects, the present invention generally comprises a method for organizing information in which the search activity of previous users is monitored and such activity is used to organize articles for future users. Personal data about future users can be used to provide different article rankings depending on the search activity and personal data of the previous users.
This brief description sets forth rather broadly the more important features of the present invention in order that the detailed description thereof that follows may be better understood, and in order that the present contributions to the art may be better appreciated. There are, of course, additional features of the invention that will be described hereinafter and which will be for the subject matter of the claims appended hereto.
In this respect, before explaining a preferred embodiment of the invention in detail, it is understood that the invention is not limited in its application to the details of the method set forth in the following description. The invention is capable of other embodiments and of being practiced and carried out in various ways. Also, it is to be understood, that the phraseology and terminology employed herein are for the purpose of description and should not be regarded as limiting.
As such, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the conception, upon which disclosure is based, may readily be utilized as a basis for designing other methods and systems for carrying out the objects and purposes of the present invention. It is important, therefore, that the claims be regarded as including such equivalent constructions insofar as they do not depart from the spirit and scope of the present invention.